[Deck] Divining Top Combo

[Smmenen]

From SCG Syracuse:

5 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Helm of Awakening
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Black Lotus

4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
3 Deep Analysis
3 Cunning Wish
3 Future Sight
2 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Intuition
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Frantic Search
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Timetwister

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sideboard
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Annul
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Brain Freeze
1 Coffin Purge
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Flash Counter
1 Stifle
1 Hydroblast

With Top, Helm, and Future Sight you draw your entire deck.  I'm a little dissapointed MY team didn't see the synergy between Top and Future Sight.  This deck looks really cool and it put one of four players into the top 8.  However, it is appears to be misbuilt.   It could be the product of days and days of tuning, but the deck is running one Intution, one Merchant Scroll and two thirsts.  It is too improbable that running one Merchant Scroll and one Intuition is optimal.  I was hoping the guys who piloted this deck would speak up, but they have been silent since Syracuse.  There are also lots of other possibilites for this deck.  I'm also very surprised that it does not have a Mind's Desire.  I was wondering what Steve and his test group found effective and what they found ineffective.  Would they have rather had a third Thirst over Deep Analysis? That's the kind of question I'm interested in.  What sort of metagame did they anticipate?  (And there isn't even a single Disrupting Shoal in there despite all that blue!)

[Marton]

What surprises me even more is that the kill is only available thru the cunning wish. Meddling mage naming cunning wish prevents them all form of removal and their kill condition.

[Toad]

There is no reason to name Cunning Wish on Meddling Mage anyways in there. Since this is a new concept, no one would have known this deck had no maindeck win condition.

[Freelancer]

Well there are a couple off things that suprise me:

3x mana drain? is it me or should this be 4x since it accelerates mana to drop a quick helm/intuition/future sight/wish/deep anal./thirst...

Also the intuition/scroll thing smmenen mentioned is somewhat weird, it might be because scroll also fetches recall and wish and that they took versatility over speed...I didn't test this though so I wouldn't really know...

[kirdape3]

This deck is pretty much Extended Mind's Desire, only with various elements put in since Desire itself isn't legal.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the deck evolve along similar lines.

[PucktheCat]

I played around with this a bit.  After some testing I made the following changes:

-1 Cunning Wish
-1 Deep Analysis
+1 Rushing River
+1 Intuition

The River was added to solve the Meddling Mage problem and to make for a one spell shorter tutor chain in case of Trinisphere.  Deep Analysis for Intuition just seemed intuitive to me (no pun intended).  Intuition is great in this deck.  I also thought the draw engine had a bit of flab in it so I cut:

-2 Thirst for Knowledge
-1 Timetwister
-1 Merchant Scroll

And tried various four-ofs, especially Brainstorm.  Brainstorm doesn't really have synergy with the Top, but it is still really good.  Another possibility is just going up to four TfK, or three TfK and a Drain.

Other things I tinkered with:

-1 Helm of Awakening
+1 Mana Drain

-1 Mana Vault
+1 Mana Drain/Chrome Mox/Island

In my experience the strengths of the deck were the mono-U mana base and the fact that when the pieces are in place the combo doesn't require any mana to go off.  It is also creatureless, which throws decks for a loop in this environment.

The problems with the deck were evident as well.  It needs three blue mana to win, which can be hard to find, espcicially if you get one of the non-basics in your opening draw.  Helm of awakening isn't a card you want to play early because most opponents will destroy you with it.  The deck is also really vulnerable to Trinisphere/Sphere of Resistance and, at least with Trinisphere, Helm doesn't help.  Of course Trinisphere is restricted now.  The deck is also really vulnerable to Seal of Cleansing and other disenchant effects.

Those tinkering with the deck need to think about whether Imperial Seal belongs, as well.

Leo

[ChaosTheory]

There is no reason to name Cunning Wish on Meddling Mage anyways in there. Since this is a new concept, no one would have known this deck had no maindeck win condition.

While I agree with you, the guy that made top 8 with it did lose a game to Lam Phan because of Meddling Mage naming Cunning Wish.

I do believe that it would always be too risky to  have your only win condition in your sideboard, due to the fact that if Cunning wisah got countered/RFG/Meddling Maged, you can't win.

The deck was very innovative, and it looks as though it could possibly be more of a contender in the environment with some more thought put into the maindeck.
A win condition main + another Mana Drain would be my first inclusions.

[Smmenen]

The thing that should be remembered is that every person in the top 8 got to see their opponent's decklist.  There is now way that Steve and his group could have anticipated that.  I'm not so sure that they NEED a win condition maindeck, but they probably should have one.  

Again, why not Mind's Desire?  It seems so obvious.  And could Shoal be good in this?

[Freelancer]

Maybe 1/2 shoals can be added, but I doubt they will be that good (I have a profound disliking for situational cards)...

I fail to understand why you think minds desire should be added...It is only particulary powerfull when you have the combo in place and you can't really storm up to far unless you already have a future sight in play...And even than a top is probably better in that case...

Can you explain to me why exactly minds desire would be so good in here?


(I view this more as a control/combo deck even more than TPS, correct me if I'm wrong )

[PucktheCat]

Mind's Desire seems like it would be weak unless you have the combo set up in which case Future Sight is just as good or better.  I guess the question is which is a better to find the other combo parts since both will win you the game if you have the other parts already.

My initial response would be Future Sight, but that is untested.

Leo

[Smmenen]

Becuase Mind's Desire is an insanely powerful card that can you can set up for like turn 3-6 with only a few spells with Helm and get insane uncounterable card advantage.  It may not work, but it is worth testing.

[Revvik]

This seems more of a testing/tweaking thing that Smmenen is asking.  Mind's Desire = insanely powerful, no doubt about that, and in a deck that allows a bunch of free spells, it can be a great way of setting up or even going off if you (for some reason) don't have Sight in play or fear for too many counters (this obviously requires a maindeck kill condition).

Disrupting Shoal is probably not necessary, although many of you out there definitely doubt the power of this card. This deck has a high diversity of casting costs, and could abuse this card almost as well as any other.

Although I am a fierce proponent of the card, I am unsure as to its conclusion - I think it would require too much reworking and dilute the deck (Forces, Drains, and Shoals make it VERY control).

I could possibly be persuaded if I knew precisely what the primary "role" of this deck was.  Does it want to control, or use Force of Will as free protection and Drain as a mana boost? (These things don't necessarily facilitate a control role)

[Freelancer]

I doubt desire will work, since even in TPS its clunky (uncounterable) I win card...And TPS is geared towards storm, and not towards top combo...
But your right its worth testing, if only I had the time to test this and meandeck doomsday and bird sh*t etc...*sighs*

Yeah I am really interested in what the primary roll this deck plays...Did anybody actually playtest this thing or is everyone speculating like me?  

Is there no way to come in contact with the deckbuilders, since they should have the answers to these kinda questions...(I presume they tested like mad with this deck)


I just realized that desire is even more insane off a drain...Don't know why I didn't realize this before...o_0
Also desire can mean mid/lategame another bomb like yawgmoth's win although it needs a bit more setting up...
Even revealing a future sight with some goodies can be back breaking for a opponent...
(it also makes my favorite play ever possible: casting desire three times with yawgmoth's win and timetwister for your entire library )

[Pern]

There is no reason to name Cunning Wish on Meddling Mage anyways in there. Since this is a new concept, no one would have known this deck had no maindeck win condition.

While I agree with you, the guy that made top 8 with it did lose a game to Lam Phan because of Meddling Mage naming Cunning Wish.

Opponent decklists were handed out in the top 8,
as is done at high level sanctioned tournaments.
This was not announced ahead of time.
If it had been, I'm sure the deck would have been built differently.

[justindz]

On the Shoal front, I found them to be quite useful in my Legacy build thread(s) (and probably so on the Vintage front, by extension).  Since the deck can actually go infinite with or without Future Sight, you can pitch a Future Sight to Shoal to stop FoW under pressure.  I was running several 2-cost draw spells as well to pitch against Mana Drain and several of the Fish and Landstill strategies.

I also ran a main deck Brain Freeze and a Cunning Wish w/ Freeze in the SB to get around the Mage/Extraction problem.  Note that if you go the main deck Tendrils route you can pull off a kill if needed without even going infinite.  Draining in to a mass of colored mana will get you a pretty high storm count off just Future Sight and one Top.

This is a very fun deck.  There is a lot of synergy w/ fetchlands and you can do some serious digging and draw fixing with the combo pieces prior to going infinite--pretty good for a control strategy.  I'm glad to see this making some headway in Vintage.  I started working on a Legacy version (a very poor one with vedalken archmage and trinket mage) after I opened by first pack of <strike>CoK</strike>Champions.

[rvs]

I piloted this deck into a T4 spot at a 70 player Mox Tournament, only to lose to Jaap's good draws and my own unfortunate ones.

I made the following changes:

-2 TFK, +1 Intuition, +1 Rebuild. The rebuild was purely a metagame call.

I overhauled the Sideboard a bit, but I suppose that's not very interesting. I was quite satisfied with the maindeck. You really need 2 Intuitions in there (not more!), and Merchant Scroll has worked out pretty well for me.

The so-so slots are Timetwister and Frantic Search. Sometimes they are so extremely hot, and other times they are pretty useless. It's really difficult to cut them, but they would be the first to go.

3 Mana Drain's is definately enough. I might even go as far that maybe Mana Leak is better, but I'm not sure yet. Sometimes it's just nice to drain into a Helm and then just randomly go off. I'm pretty convinced 3 is the right number.

Anyway, I might have some more thoughts (and a QnD report maybe!) tomorrow, since I'm pretty beat right now.

[Maltralak]

The only change that I have made to the deck so far has been to remove the lone Merchant Scroll, adding in a Lotus Petal in it's place.  It has been amazing.  Petal allows drain mana up on turn 1, along with giving you another blue source so you can play future sight earlier/without a lotus.

I'm looking for other cards to cut down on to play more Intuition and a possible MD Brainstorm/Echoing Truth.  At the moment I'm leaning towards the thirsts, netting me two more slots for Intuition, but still leaving me without a MD win/answer.

Aside from cutting Thirst, the only other card I dont really think goes too well with the deck is Timetwister.  I'll admit that there are times that it has come in handy, but I think it's slot would probably be better off as either your MD Brainfreeze or the Echoing Truth.

As for cutting down on Helms, I dont reccomed it.  I've tested a lot of games on MWS since I've seen this list, and I cant remember how many times I've needed to grab that final piece, and Intuition did it, without enough of the combo to be able to reliably Intuition for, there will be games you lose that you otherwise could have won.  Having three top, sight, and helm are vital to this deck.

[jpmeyer]

While watching GI's and iamfishman's games, there were a lot of games where they needed Frantic Search to set up.  It's sooooooooo not cuttable.

[BigChuck]

When we were testing, we simply found the Frantic Search to be amazing. It added to much more fuel to the fire in the middle of going off, and was generally an amazing mana accelerant.

[Rico Suave]

I like this deck a lot.  It's really solid.

Frantic Search is an underrated card in general.  It's a real powerhouse in the right deck.

[virtual]

Quick list of thoughts from my testing:
Future sight is great, but fairly hard to resolve/doesn't come earlier than turn 3 without lotus, or academy.

I tried bumping it up to more mana drains, and it just gets in the way of the main gameplan.

Lotus petal is amazing, definately should be in there.

Someone noted that this doesn't need mana to go off... you do need to have access to UU in your remaining cards, so: Lotus, petal, academy, sapphire, and frantic search are your options.  

With the chalices in the SB, I don't know what you set it at, possibly 0, but 1 or 2 seems suicidal.  

Helm of awakening is too symetrical.  Also it conflicts with itself a bit:  You want ot cast lots of spells to make it better, but you need lots of colored mana to do so.  

Thirst for knowledge isn't fantastic, because you don't really want to pitch anything to them (besides the deep anals).  

Deeps seem like the most likely draw to get stuck in your hand... they are great in the GY, and horrible in your hand...

I think maindeck bounce is needed, or perhaps a main-deck kill.  I personally prefer bounce, as it's more versatile, though I did manage to just go off one game without future sight (meddling mage), and win on a TPS-esque style play.  

Traditional combo hate also takes this deck out, so it suffers the "residual damage" effect.  Oath was such a nasty surprise when it was released because no existing "hate" was sufficient to deal with it, so the surprise bomb swept a huge tourney.  

As with any deck in AK wars, not being able to cast AKs severly hampers this decks ability to perform.  

-Virtual

[rvs]

You can easily set the Chalice at 1 against combo decks, and then when you are ready to go off, you just rebuild / truth it.

Also, you don't need mana when going off, since you're picking up your deck, thus can play a ton of mana for free.

edit: oh, I just woke up, nevermind the last part ^^

[Kowal]

He meant you need to have blue sources left in your deck with which to cast wish and brain freeze (and often a draw spell, too)

[Rebel7284]

Hello, i have been playtesting a similar deck since top came out.  Here is the list.


// NAME: Academy

// Lands
    2  Flooded Strand
    3  Polluted Delta
    1  Strip Mine
    4  Tropical Island
    4  Underground Sea
    1  Tolarian Academy

// Spells
    1  Fastbond
    3  Future Sight
    1  Yawgmoth's Bargain
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Crop Rotation
    1  Mystical Tutor
    2  Stroke of Genius
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    4  Force of Will
    4  Mana Drain
    1  Demonic Tutor
    3  Sylvan Scrying
    2  Tendrils of Agony
    1  Time Walk
    1  Timetwister
    1  Tinker
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    2  Crucible of Worlds
    1  Helm of Awakening
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Mana Vault
    1  Memory Jar
    3  Sensei's Divining Top
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Zuran Orb

Some notes on my version:

With this many artifacts, tutoring for tolarian academy generates a huge amount of mana allowing me to cast the bulky future sight with relative ease.

I am only running one helm of awakening since it's horrible to play if you're not going to win immediatly.

Since i can tutor for strip mine, a resolved crucible murders many decks while also making sure i dont die to my opponent's lock.

I have an alternative win condition if future sight gets removed in fastbond - zorb combo in which i can either kill with stroke or just sit on infinite life (nice possibility while only using 2 card slots).  About stroke itself, with academy AND mana drain it's quite good mainboard and it also pitches to Force.

Top with Fetchlands is AMAZING.  If you need a force or a drain NOW, you can frequently look at 6 different cards in search for it.  Looking at 6 cards in search of a combo peace isn't too bad either

With Academy, i dont usually have trouble playing yagmoth's bargain for its full cost and as we all know, resolved bargain = game in a vast majority of cases.

I think the rest of my choices are self explanatory.

Problems with my build:

Null Rod pretty much kills me.

Trinisphere stalls me a lot and forces me to try to win using the fragile zorb.  Still not as bad as Null Rod

Seal of Cleansing is annoying.

I hope this list has been helpfull.

[wette]

I've been testing this deck for some days... and I've realized that you should play 1 maindeck brainfreeze for one reazon:

Playing maindeck brainfreeze lets you win the same turn you cast the last piece of the combo, even if you have played land this turn and you have no disponible mana, because you will only have to draw your entire deck and play your brainfreeze for 1 with your sapphire or your lotus...

while if you have to cast cunning first you will have to pass the turn to win a turn later and  playing a control/combo that use to win in the middle game 1 turn makes the difference.

[virtual]

"As I said above, maindeck bounce is enough (no need for a maindeck brainfreeze), if you run sapphire, lotus, petal, and frantic search.  You only need 1 of those +1 blue, in order to win in that case...  I never had a problem w/ it...

-Virtual

[serracollector]

Wow.  First off I want to say this, and I quote:

serracollector
Basic User

Posts (102)
Location:
Ada, OH, USA Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:13 am    Post subject:    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Just wanted to let ppl know:

Diving Top + Future Sight + Helm of Awakening= Draw your deck.
Throw random combo in that requires deck, win.
_________________
The Ultimate First Turn Kill Deck:
60 Black Lotus
Primer:
Draw 7, play 7 Lotus, sac for 21 mana burn, first turn kill, gg.

that was a post I made in this forum:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19992&highlight=

A long ass time ago, and as usual it was sent to the newbie forum along with ALL my deck ideas.  Anyways, I have been tinkering with this deck idea since Top came out, but never posted anything on here due to EVERY time I post something it is sent to the newbie forum.  Also, do to my daughter and new job, I have not had the time or moeny to pilot this bad boy in a tournament.  Anyways, my deck list isn't far from the one piloted by the ppl who top8, not to get into detail, but the general basis of my decklist was:

8 counters
3 FS
3 Helm
1 DT
1 MT
1 VT

Brainstorms/Fetchlands

Broken Artifact Mana (including Chrome/Vault/Crypt)

Kill:
1 Brainfreeze
1 Krark Clan Iron Works
1 Mana Crypt
1 Soldevi Digger
1 Stroke

Island/Undergrounds/Academy

I usually killed with the brainfreeze , but you can use the Crypt/Works/Digger to produce infinite mana (tap, sac, return  to bottom of library, draw with top etc.) and then stroke or any other X spell to kill them, or, even use magma mine/rocket launcher.  I know those ways may seem outdated, but with cranial extraction and mages every where, having more than one kill, and one of them being an artifact, can be quite nice.  Anyways, the deck is actually quite good when piloted correctly and made the right way.  If you guys are serious about it, you can msg me on here and I may give out the DL I have been tinkering with the last couple months.  Sometimes, I truly hate this sight.  Sometimes I wish I was rich and had time to do the things I want to do LOL.  Have fun.

SC

[serracollector]

Also, just wanted to let people know that not onyl was it a bad idea, but here are two GREAT quotes from some of TMD's best players on the topic of Divining Top.

Kowal
IRC Rock Scissors Paper World Champion
Vintage Adept

Posts (1376)
Location:
Sunderland, MA Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:26 am    Post subject:    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
This thread is in fact too bad for newbie. Locked.
_________________
Team Short Bus
The Boner is the ninja's hottest weapon. A ninja can pop thousands of them if they get super-pumped. Some studies show that a ninja can pop more than a million boners if they need to. They can be used on babes or morons.
 

and......

Toad
Crazy Frenchman
Site Admin

Posts (1317)
Location:
Frenchieland Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 7:23 am    Post subject:    

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Sensei's Divining Top is an horrible card in a Workshop deck with no shuffler effects. These decks would rather use Scroll Rack, and they don't even do it because It's bad too.

Actually, Sensei's Divining Top is not even really good in Standard.
_________________
Team Meandeck
Initiate of the Church of Bla.
 

Just thought it funny.  I guess sometime us "n00bs" might actually have a good idea.....if someone would listen.

Even if I were accept for a moment that you're right and have a reason to complain, is it really necessary to do it here? Is this contributing anything to the discussion at hand? Your first post, minus the ire, would have sufficed as far as I can tell.

Hyperion

[Vegeta2711]

Wow. First off I want to say that you shockingly are not the first, nor only person to think of such a concept SerraCollector! In fact I know many people, including myself, who figured that combo not long after seeing the card. =/ That doesn't mean I'm going to try and take credit for it, it was an OBVIOUS discovery.

The fact is, the Divining Top + Helm + FS combo is... well... pretty bad when looked at like straight combo-wise. I give credit to the guys for making a viable deck around it and doing well. Kudos to them for making it work.

Hell, look at the quotes. The original thread was Top vs. BS, which WAS crap and Toad's quote refers too workshop decks (I mean... it's even stated in the quote).

Just thought it funny. I guess sometime us "n00bs" might actually have a good idea.....if someone would listen.

It might've been a good idea if you had bothered to do something with it. Instead you try to take credit for someone elses work on the subject.

Way to look like a idiot in a desperate attempt to get some props for an obvious idea.

[serracollector]

Where in the FUCK did I say i was the first person to come up with the idea?  Show me?  Where?  NO fucking where, thats where.  I was just trying to show.....you know what fuck it.  Delet this post, delete all my posts, ban me from this site whatever, TMD is fucking gay, they don't listen to ideas until some team, like meandeck or shortbus or whatever takes it and wins a tourney, and when someone says something about it, well, it just sucks to be them.  Whatever man.  Fuck this site.

SC

I'm not going to make you into a martyr by doing what you suggest. This post'll stay right here so people can see how ridiculous you're acting.

Hyperion